Send us Fan MailDawn talks with fractional CFO Nate Littlewood, who supports early-stage e-commerce and CPG founders with physical-goods challenges like inventory financing and growth strategy guided by financial statements. Nate explains why founders avoid finances through cognitive dissonance—financial reports can contradict the success story they want to believe—then outlines four phases of relating to money: denial, overwhelm, intrigue, and enlightenment, and the “context vacuum” that makes metrics meaningless without industry benchmarks. He argues you can over-invest in finance too early; before product-market fit, founders mainly need a unit economics model and a cashflow forecast (e.g., 13-week model), plus basic bookkeeping and tax compliance. As decisions multiply, tools like three-statement financial models, ROI and capital-at-risk analysis, bottleneck identification, and aligning strategy to the team’s “zone of genius” help prioritize and focus.In this episode….Meet Fractional CFO Nate (01:00)Why Founders Avoid Numbers (02:04)Pain Points That Trigger Help (06:16)Four Phases With Finance (09:28)Context and Benchmarks Matter (12:02)When Finance Becomes Useful (14:31)Early Tools Unit Economics Cash (16:07)When You Need a CFO (21:19)Models and Decision Frameworks (26:13)Bottlenecks and Zone of Genius (29:31)Founder Story Focus Wins (34:56)Wrap Up and Where to Connect (38:28)Final Thanks and Next Episode (39:47)Nate Littlewood’s Information:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanlittlewood/Website: https://www.futurereadycfo.com/Support the showThanks for listening. If you liked what you heard and want more, please visit and subscribe:Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: https://youtube.com/@dawnkkennedyxo?si=DcRcjv7H0KN5_vFPFollow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dawnkkennedyxoFollow us in Tiktok: https://tiktok.com/dawnkkennedyFor weekly in-depth articles, tips, and strategies: https://getinweredoingbusiness.substack.com Dawn’s Website: https://dawnkkennedy.com/Links and Freebies: https://dawnkkennedy.com/resources Support the showSUPPORT THE SHOWOrder Dawn’s book, The Profit Accelerator for Small Business ...

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